Today’s Solutions: December 16, 2025

Lifestyle

Alongside taking care of other people and the planet, make sure you take good care of yourself. The Lifestyle section at the Optimist Daily has solutions for everyday wellbeing on topics like food, beauty, fashion, and the latest trends. Curious about caring for houseplants, eating plant-based, or parenting tips? It’s all in there.

This program uses rock climbin

This program uses rock climbing to help new refugees adapt to life in America

Every Wednesday, about a dozen children, meet up at Vertical World, an indoor rock-climbing gym in Seattle. A few weeks prior, they were living in places like Africa, India, or Afghanistan. Now, as refugees in America, new to the country and often even the English language, Stone Masters, a program Read More...

New study finds raising minimu

New study finds raising minimum wage just $1 would cause suicide rates to drop

Though the federal minimum wage has stayed stagnant for a decade, there has been a push to increase the minimum wage in certain cities and states, and the benefits of doing so go beyond merely enabling people to afford their rent. A higher minimum wage could keep people out of prison and has Read More...

5 clever ways to sharpen your

5 clever ways to sharpen your intuition

Imagine if you had a secret superpower that let you always make the best decisions for yourself. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Well, it turns out you do have such a superpower. It’s called your intuition, that little inner ‘hunch’ within you that gives you a feeling about what decisions to Read More...

Want to make a new habit stick

Want to make a new habit stick? Research tells us this is the best technique

According to one study, only eight percent of people maintain their New Year’s resolutions for the whole year. That’s a rather unimpressive success rate, which is why during the past few years, researchers have been studying the best techniques for forming daily habits. Out of the 23 Read More...

Here are 3 ways to unclog your

Here are 3 ways to unclog your kitchen sink without any chemicals

You don’t need to reach for the bottle of Drano the next time your kitchen sink clogs up. In fact, there are many ways to unclog your sink without chemicals using things you already have in your house. Below you’ll find three of them. Use a plunger: If you've got standing water in your sink, Read More...

This little tip will prevent y

This little tip will prevent you from being scammed in 2020

2020 is finally here, and it's coming with its own set of challenges. Not only do we have to break the habit of writing 2019, when we really mean 2020, but the dawn of a new decade also creates a unique opportunity for scammers, says Ira Rheingold, executive director for the National Association of Read More...

Unencumbered: The Wonderfully

Unencumbered: The Wonderfully Bearable Lightness of Leaving Screens Behind

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true. - Charles Dickens By Kristy Jansen The Friday before Christmas, I left town for the week to meet up with my extended family to share the holiday.  My Read More...

How to take a vacation that is

How to take a vacation that is truly sustainable

What’s better than a relaxing vacation? A relaxing vacation that is also sustainable—one that doesn’t harm the people or the surrounding area where you choose to spend your leisurely time. There are many practical ways to exercise sustainable travel. Before you head on your next trip, make Read More...

Feeling lonely? Here are 3 doc

Feeling lonely? Here are 3 doctor-approved ways to deal with loneliness

What can we do when we feel lonely and utterly disconnected from the rest of the world? As it turns out, the antidote for loneliness is all around us. It’s in our homes, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our schools, and our broader community. Decades of public health research show that if we Read More...

Do you get bored talking to st

Do you get bored talking to strangers? Try this next time you talk to one

Conversations with strangers can go one of two ways. Some are unyieldingly boring—an exchange of information in which neither side reveals more about themselves than could be gleaned from LinkedIn. But in some interactions there’s an alchemy at work, the meeting of two minds sparking a change Read More...